102 
reditary, and the executive power year- 
ly elective—of course their laws were 
very bad and very oppressive; but their 
public operations were managed with 
great skill, zeal, and success: for it is 
of the nature of the lottery of birth to 
provide men not at all more adapted 
for the office which it appoints them to, 
than for that of swindler, gambler, dan- 
dy, or any other human occupation: 
whereas election as naturally secures 
the desirable correspondence between 
the capacities of a man and his employ- 
ment. In my government, therefore, 
the practical, or executive power at 
least, shall be hereditary. 
I cannot help thinking (interfered 1) 
that in the simple monarchies, where 
this is also the case, there prevails an 
identity of interest between the sove- 
reign and his subjects, which operates 
favourably on their well-being. There 
is a stability, an order, an uniformity 
of spirit, tending to protect improve- 
ments slow of growth, and to distribute 
on every quality its natural reward. 
Besides, by exalting the prince alone, 
and levelling the citizens among each 
other, the painful sentiment of inequa- 
lity is there much lessened. To destroy 
each of these advantages I provide the 
necessary checks (interrupted Adelolmi 
eagerly) I establish two clubs of land- 
owners, with a several negative on the 
wish of the prince, and of each other; 
so that, in order to bring any thing to 
bear, he must chafter for the co-opera- 
tion of those who are most able and 
most willing to thwart his proceedings, 
and must ever be compromising with 
their opposition. His wars, therefore, 
will be conducted with driftless extra- 
vagance, and his very peace grudgingly 
borne. 
I distinguish between his revenue, 
and that of the nation, that there may 
be perpetual motives for reciprocal en- 
croachments and dislikes ; and J assign 
to him the payment of the judicial and 
military power, as if they were appen- 
dages of his person and family, in order 
to poison the subjects’ mind with a 
continual jealousy of the impure adini- 
nistration of justice, and of the immi- 
nence of military despotism. To him 
I also allow the prerogative of declaring 
war, that his personal will may at any 
time be able to do the greatest of mis- 
chiefs. 
To destroy all opinion of the stabi- 
lity of any authority, or system of mea- 
sures, and to obtain the radical incon- 
venience of elective monarchies, I in- 
sert in the constitutional act, in the 
Suppressed Chapter of Gulliver's Travels. 
[March f, 
fundamental settlement, that the rights 
of the sovereign are not indefeasible 5 
and, by these means, I inspirit the neg- 
lected and factious members of my 
club-government to patronize plots and 
conspiracies for ostracizing the royal 
dynasty: and I think it hard if more 
than four of a family ever manage to 
reign in regular succession. ‘Thus the 
horrors and confiscations of a revolu- 
tion will be looked for every genera- 
tion, will very often be suffered, and 
the misery of continual uncertainty 
and alarm will destroy all enjoyment 
from property and patient industry. 
The two clubs again shall difler from 
each other in rank; and, throughout 
the community, there shall be all sorts 
of sources of distinction, birth, title, 
wealth, badges, offices sacred and pro- 
fane, privileges religious and civil ; 
and thus the pinings and heart-burn- 
ings of the littlest and greatest minds 
shall alike have nutriment, and envy 
be a universal guest. 
But where (resumed I) do you vest 
the legislative power—in the two clubs 
of land-owners? Certainly (answered 
he) these are of all men the least inte- 
rested in wise laws, and, from their in- 
sulated residence, and out-door amuse- 
ments. the least skilled in the science 
of legislation. Their property, easily 
ascertained, requires no precision in the 
statutes. Littie exposed to depredation, 
it requires no police. It is agreeably 
affected by war and by famine, which 
increase the demand for produce, and 
enhance its price. By the dissolution 
of towns, again, and the ruin of com- 
merce. the relative importance of the 
landed interest is augmented. Nothing 
can be more certain, therefore, than that 
their inclinations will operate in per- 
petual hostility to the general welfare, 
and that they will form a permanent 
conspiracy against the community. In 
the feudal ages, when they alone bore 
sway, there were only barons and vas- 
sals, tyrants and slaves. Every go- 
vernment by the landed interest, from 
Poland to Jamaica, has been an instance 
of the most unequal distribution of hap- 
piness imaginable, the few brutally en- 
joying, and the many brutally suffer- 
ing. I conceive, therefore, that by vest- 
ing in land-owners the great mass of 
constitutional power, I have madeevery 
calculable provision for the capital evils 
of aristocracy ; for restrictions and mo- 
nopolies in commerce ; for wars, when- 
ever manufacturers begin to acquire a 
rival consequence; for the unfair as- 
sessment of taxes on the industrious, 
not 
